54 going to give you one. I want vou to bu} it." I asked him why. "I need the money to buy paints. I want to do some oils for the spring art show." "How much do you need?" I asked. "Twel ve dollars," Hanna said. I whistled. J was behind on all m} bills, and twelve dollars seemed an aw- fullot for a work by a convict amateur. "Someday you will be proud to have an original Hanna hanging on your wall." "Maybe," I said, "but the whole thing sounds a bit illegal to me." "Legality is for Square] ohns," Han- na said, still smiling. I was reminded sharplv of Schroe- der's warning, but before the conversa- tion went any farther, a voice bellowed, "Come on, come on! Let's go, let's go!" It was a guard, who was coming out of Four-Box, the yard office, which stood just outside the education build- Ing. Hanna waved farewell and loped toward his cell block for the four-o'clock head count. As I walked through the prison flower garden, which officials had named the Garden Beautiful, I felt that I'd had a narrow escape. A FEW days later, Dick Schroeder asked me, between classes, to walk down the hall with him again. There were a couple of things on his mind "I saw a man in your class making a paper airplane," he said presently, as we walked along. "I know," I said. "I told him to ground it." Schroeder wasn't satisfied. "You'd better make more of a point about it," he said, and drew deeply on a cigarette. "The thing got out of hand completel} in Crawford's class." Crawford was one of the grammar-school teachers. "When he turned his back, he damn near got buried under paper airplanes." "I'll watch it," I promised, "but let me handle it my own way." "You've got to let them know you're in control," Schroeder said earnestly. "This sort of thing can spread like wild- fire, and then what happens to disci- pline?" "I'll watch it," I said again. Schroeder lighted a new cigarette from the butt of his old one. "What's going on with you and Hanna?" "NothIng that I know of," I said. "He says you're going to buy one of his pictures." "It's the first I've heard of it," I lied. "Don't try to smuggle anythIng out," Schroeder said. "They'll nail you for sure." CURI051TY may have killed the cat; more lIkely the cat was just unlucky, or else curious to see what death was like, having no cause to go on licking paws, or fathering litter on litter of kittens, predictably. Nevertheless, to be CUrIOUS is dangerous enough. To distrust what is always said, what seems, to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams, leave home, smell rats, have hunches does not endear him to those doggy circles where welJ-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches are the order of things, and where prevails much wagging of incurious heads and tails Face it. CUrIosity will not cause him to die- only lack of it will. ever to want to see the other side of the hill, or that improbable country where living is an idyll (although a probable hell) would kill us all. Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all. Dogs say he loves too much, is irresponsible, is changeable, marries too many wives, deserts his children, chills all dinner tables with tales of his nine lives. Well, he is lucky. Let him be nine-lIved and contradictory, curious enough to change, prepared to pay the cat price, which is to die and die again and again, each time with no less paIn. A cat minority of one is all that can be coun ted on to tell the truth And what he has to tell on each return from hell is thIS: that dying is what the living do, that dying IS what the loving do, and that dead dogs are those who do not know that hell is where, to live, they have to go. -ALASTAIR REID . "I know," I said. "Thev'll meet me at the gate and peel off my decal and tell me they hope to see me in leg irons." Schroeder got sore and stalked back to his classroom. I was sore, too, and told Hanna, who was in my next class, to stay after the bel] rang I asked him what he meant by telling Schroeder I . -- -1- '. . . ", E3 " . .., '::-_. . -""-7 . . -.. . ... ...,. . " ...l ':' ,r . :...... -! . --. , - . was going to buy one of his paintings. "You will when you see it," he said. "Besides, I told you I needed the money." "Why should I help you?" I asked. Hanna's manner remained courte- ous, but it was no longer pleasant. "You think that because I'm a Negro and a convict I can't paint," he said. I told him I hadn't saId that and he knew it "They're more honest down South," Hanna said "Down there, they call you 'nigger' and you know where you stand. Up here, they call vou :Mr.